Kenneth Edwards married in the St.Albans area in 1938 to an actress. Prior to receiving his commission in the RAFVR he had trained as and served as a radio operator in the RAF but on Merchant Navy shipping. He received his commissin to the rank of P/O on probation on 29th July 1940 (with seniority back dated to 30th May 1940) but on 23rd October 1940 he transferred to the Technical Branch of the RAF. This suggests that his skilled as a radio operator on board shipping were perhaps required by the RAF Technical Branch and he worked in the area of Signals. He rose to F/O (war subs) on 23rd May 1941. When he died he was technically the rank of Acting Squadron Leader. He was Mentioned in Despatches after his death on 11th June 1942. Kenneth was known to his family as being a clever young man though had turned down the chance of attending Oxford University, although pure speculation it is possible that he could speak some foreign languages and that his role on board ships was to intercept radio transmissions. Again speculation but it is reasonable to assume that there would need to be a high ranking British officer in the Flamingo with the Russians and he could well have been selected because he spoke Russian. I thank his niece Mrs Jane Hildred for contacting me in November 2011 and for the information and photograph of her uncle she and her husband were kind enough to provide for this account. I also thank her and her husband for a very enjoyable evening prior to the memorial service in Great Ouseburn in 2012.

Francis Wilton received his commission to P/O on probation on 1st July 1940 rising to F/O on probation exactly a year later. At the time of his death his rank was that of an Acting nature. The CWGC lists no family details for him however upon searching the birth's index his birth must have been registered in Plymouth in 1916 suggesting he was born locally. His role with the Air Ministry is not yet known.

Iain Ramsay was the son of Captain Iain Ramsay and Gwladys Marie de Grasse Ramsay, Islay; and also husband of Freda Ramsay. When CWGC compiled their records all were living in the Port Charlotte area but the Ramsey family had lived in the Kildalton area which is at the other side of Islay. The Ramsey family were an important family in the Port Ellen area of Islay, they had owned the Port Ellen distillery and the land on which the Laphroaig distillery was built. The Ramsey family had close connections with the Laphroaig distillery and Iain Ramsey had worked there as a young man. The distillery have a good display showing early photographs and he is shown on one next to the distillery owner Ian Hunter (As pictured above from an original supplied by his daughters to Kevin Cale). Before the War Iain Ramsey worked as a civilian pilot with Imperial Airways but was called up into the RAFVR at the start of the War. He was a very experienced pilot having risen through the ranks in the RAF receiving his commission on 17th May 1941 to the rank of P/O on probation. At the time of his death he had over 3700 hours flying to his name and between March and November 1941 he flew with 221 Squadron and was posted to 24 Squadron in November 1941. In the months prior to his death he flew a range of different aircraft carrying important people such as Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and Lord Louis Mountbatten. A stained glass window in St.John's Church in Port Ellen was created in his memory and he is also commemorated on the Port Ellen war memorial. The photographs below show his grave and the cemetery with Port Ellen across the bay.

Sgt Smith was known by his second name of "Bennett". Following his death his family received the official telegram information them of his death, they immediately left Hawick for Yorkshire where they met with a number of people in Great Ouseburn and they were also shown the crash site. After leaving school Bennett took up a job as a road surveyor with the Ministry of Transport in Wales, he was stationed in Cardiff in 1937-38 and then was transferred to Haverfordwest. In 1938 he attempted to join the Fleet Air Arm but was unable to get a release from the Ministry of Transport so took a surveying job in Cumbria under the leadership of a retired Army Colonel believing his chances of release would be easier should a war develop. This became true and he joined the RAFVR in 1939 and was called up for training as an observer at the start of the war. He completed his training in June 1940 and was posted to fly Wellingtons in North Africa until December 1941. He was awarded the DFM for service in North Africa with 70 Squadron, partly for his actions in the sinking of ships in Benghazi harbour. It was Gazetted on 12th December 1941 and the citation reads..

"This airman has been employed as an air observer since January 1941, and has participated in sorties involving hundreds of hours flying. Throughout, he has proved himself to be a highly skilled navigator and a consistently accurate bomb aimer. One day jn September, 1941, his bombs totally destroyed an oil storage ship in Benghazi harbour. Later, he participated in two attacks on a newly constructed jetty in the same harbour and succeeded in obtaining 5 direct hits on the target. In another attack in the same area, Sergeant Smith scored direct hits on a wreck which had been improvised to function as a jetty. He has also destroyed enemy oil storage tanks by extremely accurate bombing. This airman has executed much valuable work throughout."

After completing his Tour in North Africa he was posted back to the UK and offered a choice of either a desk job or to serve as an observer in the King's Flight; he opted for the latter and was part of a number of flights including flying Churchill to Malta. The date his DFM was Gazetted is not yet known but he did not live to be invested with it, his fiance collected from Buckingham Palace after his death.

F/Sgt Smith is buried in Hawick Cemetery, his grave also commemorates his younger brother S/Ldr George Miller Smith lost on active RAF service on 6th March 1945 with 109 Squadron. He was the pilot of Mosquito PF429 which collided with another of his unit on Ops to Wesel. His body was never found and is also commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial. The photograph shown here shows both brothers and their sister. I thank George Smith's grandson Richard Miller-Smith for contacting me in November 2012 and for kindly supplying the photograph shown above of his great uncle Sgt James Bennett Smith. The photograph of his gravestone shown above was found on a web-forum posted by "DerekR".

Sergei Aleksandrovich Asyamov was an exceptional pilot and officer and there is no doubt much more to learn about his flying career. He was born in November 1907 in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. His military service began with him serving in the Red Army from 1929 to 1933, but in 1931 he learnt to fly at a Naval flying school. He then became a flying instructor. In late 1941-early 1942 he was appointed commanding officer of 746th Aviation Regiment (3rd Air Division Long-Range) bomber unit and flew at least forty eight operational flights in the Petlyakov TB-7/Pe-8 bomber. He was chosen to fly the Russian Mission to the UK in a Pe-8 bomber because of his experience in long distance flying and he was regarded as an exceptional pilot. Following his death in England he was made a Hero is the Soviet Union on 20th June 1942. He was also awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner. The Order of Lenin was the highest decoration the Soviet Union awarded its citizens.

His age given in the English death register for him was thirty two, however, if he was born in 1907 he must therefore have been at least thirty five years old.

In November 2010 air historians Ken Reast, Albert Pritchard and Dick Barton set about tracing witnesses to this crash with the aim of locating the site. The accident was not that well-known locally as others and we speculate that it may have been somewhat covered up at the time with it being of the secret nature of the Soviet visit. Eventually some witnesses were found and we were able to visit the crash site with the kind permission of the landowners later in the month.

The main part of the aircraft crashed into this field, much of which was planted with sapling trees soon after our visit to the locate the crash site.

Instrument faces are rare finds at a crash site these days and the photograph above shows a fuel gauge found at this site.

A rather crumpled but complete plate was also found with lettering partly readable - the letters "ACCESS" on the top line are the most obvious. After slight warming I was able to straighten this plate to photograph it as shown below. It is the identification plate from one of the Bristol Perseus accessory gearboxes.

This piece shows a De Havilland part number with the "95" prefix; the Flamingo design number was the DH95 and while only a few were made the parts still carry "95" prefixs. Also visible is a De Havilland inspection stamp.

My thanks to Dick, Ken and Albert for arranging the site visit, to the two landowners for agreeing to out visit and to the many residents of Great Ouseburn who were tracked down to initially locate the location of the crash site without whom locating the field would have been very difficult. This incident was covered in an edition of Britain at War magazine in 2011 who used many of my photographs in their account.

The two memorial plaques sited near the crash site in April 2012.

An RAF officer gives an appreciation of thanks to the Russian delegation in less than ideal conditions!

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